Kuhli Loaches - Help!

[nashnut]

Okay, the one of the black kuhli loaches that came Friday is now showing signs of a fungus infection which will shortly spread to all of them. What's the safest and best medicine to treat them with? I hope I don't lose all of these guys too.

 

[The-Wolf]

melafix will be your best medication
follow the full 7 day course.

 

[Lateral Line]

Be aware that scaleless fish often slough their slime coats when placed in new tanks with different water conditions, better or worse.

This can look somewhat like a fungal or bacterial problem on the body. Being black, it may make this more obvious. I am not saying that is the case here, but if you've never seen it before, it can be easily confused. Obvious fungus is probably fungus.

 

[Teelie]

I would say Maracyn or Maracyn-II is your best bet. Melefix is more of an ointment than a true medicaition and won't actively fight the fungus. Maracyn is safe on scaless fish, plants, bacteria, etc. and I used it with cories, black neons, and snails without trouble.

 

[nashnut]

Here he is... saw another one that looks like he might have it also. They've all been hiding since I netted the first one. The kuhlis look clean so far.

 

[Lateral Line]

Sorry, this had slipped down the page. I saw another thread on Kuhli's and remembered this.

That picture seems to show the slime coat sloughing off. This frequently happens when scaleless fish are moved. It is usually a reaction to a change in water quality or chemistry.

If you bought them locally, they should have the same water conditions where they were housed before, worth checking, but it is likely. So probably not the reason.

Water quality, well, only you know that. If your water is polluted, (ammonia, nitrite or higher nitrates), then you will see this. This, if bad enough, will kill the fish.

Another common pollutant encountered is salt. If there is salt in the water, scaleless fish slough their old coats and grow newer larger ones to try to protect themselves from it. Invariably this fails as the salt has already disturbed their osmoregulation and they die shortly after.

Do any of these things sound possible?

 

[nashnut]

Thanks for the info...

I had decided that it might be the case and have been reversing things. I added very little salt and have since made several water changes diluting it even more. I treated with macayn and macayn two but then decided that was wrong and set up my filter with charcoal as well as took out and added more water. Half the deaths happened before anything at all had been added to the water and two after.

I noticed that the problem seemed to be only with the black kuhlis and that's when I began suspecting it had to be something like the protective layer. I'm keeping my fingers crossed with the two remaining black kuhlis and three regular kuhlis. Hopefully they will be okay but am not sure.

They were not local. The readings on my water were 0-0-(10-15) which I consider good. You never know what the water was like that they came from. One thing I did do and I think it might be helping... since they are from Asia I put in an Indian Amond Leaf which is used for bettas and is considered an anti fungal healer and gives a coating of protection for them. It stains the water but is considered an excellent natural healing source and promotes breeding.

I noticed this morning when I turned on the lights that the remaining guys all took off like a shot which is a good sign.

 

[Lateral Line]

Good. Hopefully the corner has been turned.

 

[nashnut]

I was just checking now. The black ones are actually a nice dark color now and not that light grey - almost white shade that they were.

Keeping fingers crossed.

Update:

There's only a few left but they all made it thru the night and are attacking a bio blend tablet for breakfast right now. It's funny watching a kuhli actually wrap himself around the tablet.